Saints Row: The Third Review - Please hold still while my pimp friend slaps you with his giant purple dildo bat

As I slam my VTOL jet into hover mode, I hear the targeting tone indicating that I’m locked on to the tank that has just emerged from around the corner of the street. I hold down the fire button and let loose with a volley of missiles before I climb out of the cockpit and jump out into a dramatic free fall.

I pop my parachute and look for my gang, which is already waiting for me on the ground. There’s my purple ninja guy, my fat luchador wrestler and my good friend the black pimp, who only speaks in auto-tune sentences powered by his golden microphone staff. Making my graceful landing, I pull out my giant purple dildo bat. It’s clobbering time!

Saints Row: The Third is a game that is crazy and stupid in all the best possible meanings of those words. It is the Monty Python and the Holy Grail to GTA IV’s King Arthur. There is barely a serious moment in the entire game, and yet the story still manages to be engaging and make you care about the main characters, which is perhaps Saint Row’s biggest win and surprise. 

Oh, aside from the story there are also quite a lot of scantly clad women, or "bitches", in this game...

You would imagine that a game that is constantly hitting you with one over the top ludicrous mission setting after the next would be all about the showpieces themselves, and not care much for making an attempt at getting the player invested in the characters themselves.

Now granted, we’re not talking storytelling that is on par with something like we’ve seen in “To The Moon” (sorry I keep plugging this game, but you really should play it!), but for a game that is heavily focused on storming brothels or jumping through the windshield of a plane in mid-flight, it is certainly a lot better than what I was expecting.

The game sees you taking the role as head of “the Saints”, an infamous gang that has reached such incredible fame that they have their own clothes stores, comic books and can’t rob a bank without being asked for an autograph. 

Unfortunately a rival crime cartel operation by the name of “the Syndicate” (no connection to people in trench coats with mind control chips implanted in their brains) is set on encroaching on the Saints lucrative business. The Saints soon find themselves back to square one, having to rebuild their crime empire in the new city of Steelport and take down the Syndicate at the same time.

The game itself is very much in the GTA vein of roaming around in a big open city and doing various side activities in between missions. Side activities include rounding up the local neighborhood prostitutes, taking on mayhem missions to cause as much destruction as possible or the aptly named "insurance fraud", which tasks you to run into traffic and try to get hurt as much as possible to rack up your insurance claims.

The side activities are alright but they get rather repetitive and I quickly found myself gravitating back to the main story or simply running around causing random carnage with assault rifles and hand grenades.

And it is the main story that is the main attraction in Saints Row: The Third. Though you will from time to time be sent on pretty standard escort or "go here and kill this dude" missions, most of them are actually really fun, as they involve some kind of completely bat-shit insane set piece or another. I won't spoil all the great surprises, but the missions are really well done and you'll constantly be surprised by just how crazy Volition went with designing this game.

Once you're a good bit into the story things will also get mixed up with the introduction of STAG, the governments military anti-gang unit, which will add a whole new level of chaos and destruction to the missions you're playing through.

Tank, it's what's for dinner!

A big part of Saints Row: The Third is customizing and upgrading your character, vehicles, weapons and gang. There's an extensive character creator that allows you to make just about whatever horrible freak you can imagine (oh, and you can make him have a "zombie voice" as well. Nicely played, Volition).

Should you want to alter your appearance or clothes during the game, then you'll find both clothing shops and plastic surgery clinics dotted around the city, which offers you a chance to change from fat slob to sexy devil, or go full hog and get a sex change and change that outie to an innie, though sadly there's no chance to pull a Lady Gaga and just go for both.

You can also take any car you steal to a garage shop and upgrade them to your hearts content, both in terms of actual performance, but also in terms of getting just the right styling ('cause you gotta be sporting some boss wheels when you're doing your drive by's). You can store these cars so you can always bring out your favorite low rider for when you want to be extra slick.

The upgrade system also extends to upgrading the abilities of your character and gang. Initially you'll be able to get pretty standard stuff like a little extra health or the ability to sprint a little longer. But go deep enough into it (and you gotta go deep if you're a real Saint) and you'll eventually be able to get some really crazy upgrades, such as the ability to call a gang member in to deliver a tank or an upgrade that gives 100% bullet damage reduction. Those kinds of upgrades just help make the game even more silly and over the top, letting you pull off some truly insane stunts that just makes you feel all the more badass.

Upgrade your posse to be the meanest in town

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the whole upgrade system is probably the biggest motivator to keep you playing Saints Row: The Third after you finish up the story missions. Since some of the later upgrades have some rather steep requirements, both in terms of cost and level needed, you'll still have a lot of playtime ahead of you after you finish the game if you want to unlock all of the really big upgrades.

I actually found myself playing for several hours after I finished the story missions, just so I could get my hands on some of the awesome upgrades, and I'm a person that normally pulls the disc right out of the drive as soon as I'm done playing through the main story of a game.

One criticism that I do want to level at Saints Row: The Third though is the actual shooting gameplay. It is certainly passable and much more enjoyable than what was on offer in something like GTA IV, but I found it rather basic and a little unsatisfying. A bit more of a "kinetic" feeling when firing the weapons would have been appreciated, as would some kind of cover system, since you'll anyways be spending a lot of time hiding behind a corner/car/SM cross to regain your health.

It's a bit of a shame, as obviously you will spend quite a lot of time in the game shooting people (sorry if I spoiled that for you), and it just never feels quite as fun as it should. Though I will say that fully upgrading your starter pistol, which makes it fire explosive shots, is quite good fun, no matter what.

You'll be doing lots of shooting in Saints Row: The Third, but It doesn't feel quite as satisfying as it should, sadly

Overall you need to consider carefully with yourself if lots of over the top and below the belt humor is your thing or not. I'm sure that a lot of people are going to be put off by the silliness and the prepubescent tone that this game is overflowing with. If you hated the original American Pie, then you'll probably not appreciate most of the humor in this game (if you hated every sequel to American Pie then you're fine. That's just called being a rational human being).

However, if you can go with it and let yourself giggle like a little schoolboy as you whack people to death with giant dildo bats, and if you can find that inner child that just wants to go on a murdering spree in a crowded city in a battle tank, then you really should give Saints Row: The Third a chance.

There is a lot more to Saints Row: The Third than what you would initially think. It's not quite Game of the Year 2011 material, but it should certainly give you many hours of sheer fun, and without any sense of self seriousness that you find in so many other blockbuster game titles of today (There's a distinct lack of dildo bats in Assassin's Creed for example. I mean, it's called Ass-Ass-In for a reason, people!).

So go on, embrace your inner immature child and have some fun in the sprawling playground that is Steelport.

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